Update: NOAA chief eases ‘Interim Rule’

The National Marine Fisheries Service today announced a set of New England groundfishery regulations for the next year that are less drastic than a preliminary proposal, though still calculated to cost the industry 9 percent of its revenue.

Dropped from the draft that was published in January for comments — mostly negative — was a virtual ban on commercial fishing within a huge swath of waters along the southern coast from Long Island, N.Y., and off the southern New England coast to deep into Georges Bank.

Also dropped was a proposal that would have more than quadrupled the size of the area in the Gulf of Maine where one day’s fishing is counted as two against fishermen’s permits. NMFS had been put on notice by New England senators and US representatives that implementing its initial package would have triggered a Congressional nullification campaign and driven NMFS’ standing with stakeholders below its current low status. Instead, the Interim Rule which takes effect on May 1 and set in place today by Jane Lubchenco, the new head of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, cuts fishing days at sea on federal permits by 18 percent and charges a day of fishing as two throughout the waters of southern New England. It also mandates no landings of winter flounder, the stock singled out for protection in the earlier proposed closing of the southern waters. But it backs off NMFS’ harder initial lines.